Traveling Shrines — California Memories

Susan Hazard

 

California Memories

 

It all started with a postcard handed to me in Ireland. During a recent visit to Westport, County Mayo, on the west coast of Ireland, I was handed a postcard. Brian Meehan, husband of a dear friend, walked into the warm kitchen holding a colored folded cardboard oblong in his hand. He held out his hand, and said, “Here, it’s time it went home.”

I took the object from him, and sat at the oak table where dinner had commenced to be served. Immediately, I saw it was a panoramic postcard from California. It had been sent to the Meehan family in Ireland from their relatives visiting the Golden State in 1948. It had scenes all well known to me, born and raised in California. I was born in Santa Barbara in 1948. I turned it over slowly, and read all the titles, and then the name and address again. It was a remarkable gift. I was surprised and pleased that something so ephemeral could have traveled so far, and lasted so long.  I thanked Brian for the surprising gift and tucked it into my backpack, to complete the long trip home with me to California.

Traveling is about movement through physical distance and time, and memory traveling through time. What memories do we retain after we journey? And what is important to us?

Remembering:

· The blue and white striped background, as in sun warmed beach towels and blankets.

· A glass canning jar of beach sand – sand filling shoes and caught in the crevices of clothing, inadvertently or purposefully brought home as impromptu souvenirs.

· A casually tied hand woven linen dining napkin, discovered in my late mother’s cedar chest, from her late Sicilian mother. She purchased it from an itinerant Armenian salesman, traveling from his native birthplace to his new home, carrying memories of the old to the new.

· Even the palm frond wreath – a circle of completion, a circle of celebration, a tiara of native folk, a remnant of warm climate palm trees.

· The unprocessed camera film and cardboard mounted slides– how do we capture memories? My father’s brief foray into recording family history, unwound and unrealized as his interest flagged, as memories are forgotten and lost.

· The shell in the box – hold it to your ear; do you hear the ocean?

· The handmade tin and glass lantern, supplying a dim illumination for the path ahead of us, is insufficient to light the path into the past, much less the future.

· The traveling shrine vehicle – a vintage, recycled enamel and metal top table, with the wheels of a child’s wagons wheels is not designed for ease of traveling. It is symbolic of the crumbling of memories over time, the idiosyncratic recall of moments of treasured occurrences and the people that inhabit our now dream-like world.

It’s all about traveling through time and memories. Time deteriorates memories. Only a few chosen glowing moments are remembered, abetted through souvenirs and incomplete records.

 

 

California Memories   2008

Vintage suitcase, paper, sand, unprocessed film, slides, vintage postcard, glass jar, handwoven napkin, palm wreath, wood, wagon wheels, repurposed glass jar and metal lantern, shells, repurposed metal top table, cloth trim, metal.

 

California Memories Detail

Mixed media, 2008

 

California Memories Detail

Mixed media, 2008